Travel to the world's most amazing places whenever you like with Discovery Education's Virtual Field Trips, no chaperones or payment required! Explore the archives by subject, grade level, or theme to view all available experiences. The virtual field trips include a video along with lesson plans and additional resources to download. Some videos are hosted on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable. You could always view them at home and bring them to class "on a stick" to share. Use a tool such as Freemake Video Converter, reviewed here, to download the videos from YouTube.

In the Classroom

Immerse your students into your studies with a close-up in-depth look through virtual field trips. Visit places where time, money, and mileage inhibit your dreams for bringing your students into wondrous worlds. Find ways to visit where your class has never gone before. Find ways to motivate your most reluctant learners. ESL/ELL learners will appreciate the visit. Reach all types of learners through a class visit. Use field trips as a whole class anticipatory guide, a center activity, a home connection, or even as extra credit. Challenge your gifted students to be guides in their own learning by choosing topics of interest. Then ask these students to share research findings in a video with discussion questions to go with the research and with links to outside resources using a tool such as Rooclick, reviewed here. Be sure students create a script to read from before beginning to produce their own video.

Pickit is a computer add-on providing royalty-free images and icons for use in Microsoft applications. Photos integrate seamlessly into PowerPoint, Sway, Word, and Windows 10. Select the download for Windows 10 or the Windows app to begin and follow directions to access the free plan.

In the Classroom

Use Pickit in your Microsoft classroom as a resource for free images for presentations, reports, and writing projects. Once downloaded, share with students how to access and find images. Use images to add interest to your class website, newsletters, and more.

Create personalized and interactive maps with MapHub's user-friendly features. Explore the featured maps to find examples of maps, then make your own. MapHub's short tutorial provides an overview of features. Add and personalize points on your map by choosing from different icons and color combinations. Give your icon a title and description; MapHub also provides many choices for map backgrounds. Connect points of interest using lines or define with polygons. When finished, download your map or share using the provided link or embed code.

In the Classroom

Use MapHub for personalized lessons in using maps and defining locations. Create a map to share on your interactive whiteboard (or with a projector) to highlight landforms, state capitols, or locations within a novel. As you teach about events in history such as the Civil War add markers to your map to share locations and information from that event. Add notes to your icons sharing information from each location. Include a link to this map on classroom computers or embed onto your class blog for students to view from any device. Add URLs to additional resources within your descriptions of points on a map. This allows you and your students to create visual presentations with access to multiple resources. Flip your classroom to create an interactive lesson using MapHub. Have students view your map as an introduction to a new unit. Instead of a traditional book report or class presentation, have students use MapHub to create an interactive map sharing their learning.

Turn audio into a podcast using any device with Anchor. Add songs from Apple Music or Spotify, upload audio from your computer, or record your voice to create your podcast. Choose a name when finished, then upload your content as a finished podcast. For ideas on what to include in your podcast, listen to Anchor podcasts shared on the site by Anchor users.

In the Classroom

Create regular or special podcasts to share on your class web page or wiki. Looking for even more ideas? Record class assignments or directions. Record story time or a reading excerpt for younger ones to listen to at a computer center AND from home! Have readers (perhaps older buddies) build fluency by recording selected passages for your non-readers. Launch a service project for your fifth or sixth graders to record stories for the kindergarten to use in their reading and listening center. Challenge students to create "you are there" recordings as "eyewitnesses" to historical or current events. Make a weekly class podcast, with students taking turns writing and sharing the "Class News," encourage students to create radio advertisements for concepts studied in class (Buy Dynamic DNA!). Invite students to write and record their own stories or poetry in dramatic readings. Language students or beginning readers could record their fluency by reading passages. Allow parents to hear their child's progress reading aloud, etc. Compare world language, speech articulation, or reading fluency at two points during the year. Challenge your Shakespeare students to record a soliloquy. Write and record a poem for Father's or Mother's Day (or other special events) and send the URL as a gift to that special person. If you have gifted students who lean toward the dramatic, this tool is simple enough for them to create dramatic mini-casts without needing any additional tools.

Create and play your own quizzes with QuizPedia's straightforward and customizable design. Play quizzes without registration or register to create and save your own quizzes. Follow the steps to create your quiz on any device. QuizPedia's format allows the use of images as an option for both questions and responses. Additional options let you set the time quizzes are active or set rules for visibility options.

In the Classroom

Pretest students and allow them to "test out" of material they already know. Learning support teachers will want their students to create their own QuizPedia sets for practice and review of any material. Create your own sets of quizzes, or let students do the work for themselves and each other. Take advantage of quizzes previously developed and available to share with students on your class website. Allow students to create a quiz for other students to take following class presentations and reports.

Sketchboard is an online collaborative whiteboard tool that contains unlimited drawing space. The free plan allows up to 5 users, three private boards, and unlimited public boards. View the 3 step tutorial to learn how to add features and use the included features. Easily share your board with other participants using the provided link.

In the Classroom

Allow students to create collaborative drawings as responses to literature. They can map out the plot or themes, add labels, create character studies, and more. Share the finished products on an interactive whiteboard, projector, or your class website. Have a group of students create a drawing so that another group can use it as a writing prompt. Use a board as a brainstorming or sketching space as groups (or the class) share ideas for a major project or for solving a real-world problem. Use this site with students in a computer lab (or on laptops) to create a drawing of the setting in a story as it is read aloud. As an assessment idea, have students draw out a simple cartoon with stick figures to explain a more complex process such as how democracy works. If you are lucky enough to teach in a BYOD setting, use Sketchboard to demonstrate and illustrate any concept while students use the chat and drawing tools to interact in real time. If you are studying weather, have students diagram the layers of the atmosphere and what happens during a thunderstorm, for example. Introduce this tool to students who are working on group projects. Alternatively, have students use this to work as partners or as a small team to complete complex math problems or equations. Give students a problem by typing it on their board.

Design and play online games at Sploder. Register on the site to save and share your creations; however, registration isn't required to play games. Choose from four different game options to create games without any coding skills. Scroll down on the home page to select games by topic including two-player games and girl games.

In the Classroom

Show Sploder to students who love to play games as an excellent source for creating their own games. Ask them to create educational games for classroom topics such as identifying parts of speech or multiples of numbers. Share a link to games on your class website for review.

Review Game Zone provides an extensive collection of educational games in a variety of formats. The more often players provide correct responses, the longer time is allowed for gameplay. Use the search feature to find games by topic or type of game. Registration isn't required; however, registration allows teachers to create games for their students. The introductory video resides on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, the video may not be viewable. You could always view the video at home and bring it to class "on a stick" to share. Use a tool such as Freemake Video Converter, reviewed here, to download the video from YouTube.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Share a link to review games on your class website for student practice at home. Include a link to games on classroom computers for use as a center. Create your own games to personalize review materials for students. Due to a large number of advertisements on the site, you may want to share this site on your interactive whiteboard with younger students before assigning for independent use.

The WE Library of Resources is a lesson plan library containing almost 300 lesson plans in a variety of topics designed to support and encourage student empowerment as part of our global community. Use the search filters to find lessons by grade level, topic, country (US or Canada), and language (English or French). Click on any lesson to download the PDF. Most lessons include correlation to Common Core Standards and ideas for differentiation.

In the Classroom

Discover the many ready-to-go free lesson plans for use in your classroom for all different subjects. Collaborate with another classroom in a different country to complete lessons and compare understanding of different cultures. During lessons have students or groups collect ideas and findings using Padlet, reviewed here. The Padlet application creates free online bulletin boards.

Your students can visit the world and build their background knowledge when they choose to read a book in conjunction with Reading Treks. Find fiction and informational books at every reading level. Each Reading Trek unit has a downloadable PDF with Common Core State Standards, ISTE Standards, Grade Level, Ideas and Activities for using the Reading Trek in class, and a list of Helpful Resouces. There is also a Google Maps (KMZ) file. Under the About TeachersFirst Reading Treks on the home page find step-by-step instructions for when you're ready to use a Reading Trek. TeachersFirst is just getting started creating Treks for books. Do you have a suggestion? Select Suggest a Trek from the left menu to let us know about it. We'd love to hear from you!

In the Classroom

These units are perfect for use with a whole-class novel, literature circles, or individual reading! Ask student's to keep a journal about what they are reading and learning using an easy virtual journaling tool such as Penzu, reviewed here. With Penzu you can add images or your own artwork as illustrations. If you are conducting literature circles a good tool to use for small group assignments and communication is Simply Circle, reviewed here, or Edmodo, reviewed here. For students or student groups to share their book with their peers, challenge them to design an interactive multimedia poster using Genial.ly, reviewed here. As an option, and for a real challenge, have students design a music track to go with parts or all of the book using Booktrack, reviewed here, and share the link on their mutimedia poster.

Classroom Strategies contains a vast library of resources for teaching reading skills. Choose from six different literacy strategies to find instructions on using the strategy, templates, examples, children's books to teach the strategy, and much more. The interactive chart also includes information on when and how to use each strategy. Many strategies include a video showing how to use these ideas in the classroom. If your district blocks YouTube, then they may not be viewable. You could always view the videos at home and bring them to class "on a stick" to share. Use a tool such as ClipGrab, reviewed here, to download the videos from YouTube. This site is a must-have for any reading teacher!

In the Classroom

Bookmark and save this site as an excellent resource for teaching literacy and reading. Use a tool like 3x3 Links, reviewed here, to be able to organize and locate your bookmarks in a snap! Share strategies as part of your ongoing professional development activities both in school and with your Professional Learning Network (PLN). Use an audio recording tool like Vocaroo, reviewed here, to record a student reading before and after using teaching strategies shared on this site. Share tips for reading strategies with parents using an online portfolio site like Seesaw, reviewed here. Seesaw provides tools for a class blog and sharing student work through images and videos.

Create and collaborate from any computer using the Microsoft suite of Office apps. Choose from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft applications to begin. Sign in to (or create) your Microsoft account and follow directions. Each application works within the familiar interface of the downloaded applications.

In the Classroom

Take advantage of these free Microsoft applications to access and use documents across a variety of devices. Have students collaborate on reports and presentations using the tools provided on this site. Easily curate and share class projects made using Microsoft Office using sharing links within each tool. Consider creating a class OneDrive account for students to share and upload documents and class projects. Flip your classroom by uploading documents and presentations for students to access on their own, then have students add comments and additional information to the uploaded document. Find 32 ideas for using Office Apps in this informative blog post from Microsoft.

ABC Avenue's YouTube Channel offers videos of children's books read aloud for the youngest of readers. Choose the video link to see all uploaded videos or choose playlists to view by type of book. Playlists include funny books, picture books, and more. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable. You could always view them at home and bring them to class "on a stick" to share. Use a tool such as Freemake Video Converter, reviewed here, to download the videos from YouTube.

In the Classroom

Share individual videos on classroom computers for students to view during center time. Share a link to this YouTube Channel on your class website or newsletter for viewing at home. Share this site with older students, then ask them to create their own video story read alouds for younger students using a tool like playposit (fromerly eduCanon) reviewed here, then share them using a tool such as SchoolTube, reviewed here.

Kodu is a software download for creating Windows PC games through a simple programming language. A download is also available for Xbox games; however, it is not free. The software allows users to create and personalize virtual worlds through point and click options. Additional options offer "if this, then that" personalization to add variety to the game. Under Resources find the "Getting Started" tutorial videos that reside on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable. You could always view them at home and bring them to class "on a stick" to share. Use a tool such as Freemake Video Converter, reviewed here, to download the videos from YouTube.

In the Classroom

Have students work in teams to design and develop content demonstrating an understanding of lessons in any subject area. Begin sharing Kodu with your computer experts who are interested in programming. Allow them to be the leaders in sharing how to use and personalize the program. Use Kodu as part of an after-school computer club. Be sure to take advantage of the resources section of Kodu for tips and tutorials on using the program.

Think of Check123 as a video encyclopedia with over 20,000 videos from around the world. Each video is approximately 1, 2, or 3 minutes in length. Videos are curated and validated by experts to ensure accuracy and quality. Quality ratings for each entry provide a score of up to 10 points based on accuracy, quality, and entertainment value. Search for any topic or browse through the many categories. Free signup allows you to save videos and request videos for addition to the site. Check123 is a very powerful tool for the classroom. You can create a lesson and search for videos from your lesson or copy and paste a relevant article and Check123 will scan its data base for you. Create quizzes and discussions for the videos that will reside on the videos' timeline. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable. You could always view them at home and bring them to class "on a stick" to share. Use a tool such as Freemake Video Converter, reviewed here, to download the videos from YouTube.

In the Classroom

Bookmark Check123 on your classroom computers for access throughout the year. Pull up short videos on any topic to introduce or reinforce content. Be sure to share a link to this site on your class webpage. Have students use Check123 to find videos on any topic, plants for example, then share the different videos to learn together. Have students make a multimedia presentation using Genial.ly, reviewed here, and include videos found on this site to include in the presentation.

As the name suggests, Unfiltered News provides news without filters from around the world. Click on any dot on the map to view popular and trending topics. Use the slider bar to see issues dating back approximately one year. Take the Quick Tour for a tutorial on using the site's features. Articles are unfiltered, so you may want to preview information before sharing with students.

In the Classroom

Achieve two goals with this very people-friendly site: provide quality nonfiction reading materials and the latest in current events. Compare and contrast trending topics around the world. Foreign language teachers will enjoy using this site as real-world practice with language skills, simply turn off the translation feature for students to view information in the native language. Have cooperative learning groups create weekly podcasts using a tool like Buzzsprout, reviewed here, featuring news from around the world.

From Rossier Online this comprehensive guide for the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) will become your "go to" resource for questions from parents and new educators. Come away with a thorough understanding of the four strands and the standards for ELA, as well as the standards for Math. Both Math and ELA have six shifts in standards explained in everyday language for better understanding. Also, find sections for Understanding CCSS Assessments and an explanation of the three different Types of Tests used at the time of this review. Get help with teaching parents about CCSS, and explore the Tools and Resources for just about any need you can think of for the classroom and community.

In the Classroom

Share with all teachers, not just new teachers, as part of back to school planning and activities. Create your own (shortened) list of advice for new teachers in your school and district. Share with student teachers as a starting point for discussing how to handle different situations they will face as new teachers. Make a list of pertinent explanations for parents at back-to-school night or as a handout.

Thingiverse offers over 15,000 3D printing designs and enough lesson plans to keep a classroom busy all school year. All free! Discover lessons for K-5, 6-8, 9-12 and university levels. Also, find lessons categorized by subject. By clicking on any of these categories, you can then search the new page by both grade level and subject i.e. K-5 and Special Education. Find Collections like Quick Projects, Building Bridges, and Featured Projects. If you are really into 3D and want to design your own project, you can do that at Thingiverse, too. Thingiverse's 3D printing documents from this tool only work on MakerBot or Stratasys printers.

In the Classroom

Whether you are a STEM or STEAM educator or teach woods or metal shop, there is something here for everyone. Are you setting up a makerspace and want to include 3D projects? Find more than you can imagine at Thingiverse. Many lessons address Next Generation Science Standards and Common Core State Standards, too. History, math, and language arts teachers may enjoy Cryptography: Sending Secret Messages and could extend it into a cross-curricular project; look at Egyptian Hieroglyphs - Making a Cartouche, too. ELA teachers, take a look at the Book Report project to create 3D Keychains having elements of the character's personality and challenges. Art teachers be sure to check out Art Connector Set SVG Conversion Project where your students can turn their drawing into a sculpture! These are just a few of the many lesson plans and projects to look into on Thingiverse. Cut down the time it takes to discover interesting projects by allowing time in class for students to explore in categories selected by you.

Create and collaborate with up to 10 others using this online whiteboard, no registration necessary. Optional registration allows users to save whiteboards for later use. Give your whiteboard a name and choose your board size to begin. Options allow for customizing the look of the whiteboard, adding a chat box, and uploading images. Share with other users using the provided link or with your personalized code. NoteBookCast is compatible with many devices making it easy for everyone to work together.

In the Classroom

Most subject area teachers and their students will benefit from the use of this tool. Allow students to create collaborative drawings as responses to literature. They can map out the plot or themes, add labels, create character studies, and more. Share the finished products on an interactive whiteboard, projector, or your class website. Have a group of students create a drawing, so another group can use it as a writing prompt. Use a NoteBookCast board as a brainstorming or sketching space as groups (or the class) share ideas for a major project or for solving a real world problem. Use this tool with students in a computer lab (or on laptops) to create a drawing of the setting in a story during a read-aloud. As an assessment idea, have students draw out a simple cartoon with stick figures to explain a more complex process such as how democracy works. If you are lucky enough to teach in a BYOD setting, use this site to demonstrate and illustrate any concept while students use the chat and drawing tools to interact in real time. If you are studying weather, have students diagram the layers of the atmosphere and what happens during a thunderstorm, for example. Introduce this tool to students who are working on group projects. Alternatively, have students use this to work as partners or as a small team to complete complex math problems or equations.

Bringing History Home provides history curriculum for kindergarten through 5th grade. The curriculum centers on concepts that include five tools for learning - reading historical accounts for context, constructing timelines, analyzing original sources, mapping events, and synthesizing sources to construct historical events. Each grade level includes two complete units with all teaching materials and aligned to Social Studies Standards.

In the Classroom

Take advantage of the free lessons and materials on this site to use in your social studies classroom. Have students use a mapping tool such as Zeemaps, reviewed here, to create a map featuring historic events. Have students create timelines (with music, photos, videos, and more) using Timeglider, reviewed here, to visualize events over a period of time.